Obama slammed over Bin Laden leaks

2012-08-16 10:01

Washington - A group of former CIA spies and US special forces troops on Tuesday launched a political attack on President Barack Obama, accusing him of overseeing reckless leaks about sensitive operations.

The group claims to have no partisan affiliation, but the assault mirrored claims by Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney's campaign that the White House leaked classified details of the raid to kill Osama bin Laden.

In a 22-minute online video entitled "Dishonorable Disclosures" the former clandestine operatives alleged that the administration spilled secrets to burnish Obama's standing without regard for the safety of US troops and agents.

A former member of the Navy Seal commandos, Scott Taylor, who ran and lost as a Republican candidate for Congress in Virginia in 2010, is identified as the group's president.

The Obama camp compared the attacks to ads that targeted former presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004, in which veterans questioned the senator's military record in the Vietnam War on patrol craft known as "Swift Boats".Reckless

"The Republicans are resorting to Swift Boat tactics because when it comes to foreign policy and national security, Mitt Romney has offered nothing but reckless rhetoric," spokesperson Ben LaBolt said.

"His two major foreign policy speeches never even mentioned al-Qaeda once, and he hasn't outlined a plan for America's relations with a single region of the world," he said.

The Obama campaign team views the Bin Laden raid and foreign policy issues generally as strong points for the president, portraying Romney as ill-informed and inexperienced.

The Opsec site accuses Obama of rushing to publicise details of the Bin Laden raid last year instead of waiting "to fully exploit the treasure trove of information" taken from the al-Qaeda's compound in Pakistan.

Noting that US forces have suffered casualties at the hands of al-Qaeda and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan since the May 2011 raid, the group's website asks: "How many will be lost as a result of these reckless disclosures?"

Members of both political parties have expressed outrage over a spate of disclosures about the Bin Laden raid, a double-agent that disrupted an al-Qaeda terror plot and cyber sabotage of Iran's nuclear programme.No disclosure on donors

Obama has denied the White House was behind any leak effort and officials say the president's administration has taken a tough line on disclosures of classified information, launching a number of prosecutions.

The Opsec group rejects comparisons with the 2004 Swift Boat ads and said its members were not part of that campaign, according to the New York Times.

The organisation says it does not have to disclose its donors as it is registered as an educational group.

Comments

squeegee.pilot - 2012-08-16 11:06

Obama leaked the info to boost his role in getting Bin Laden and now its all spin...

wesleywt - 2012-08-16 12:10

Holy crap you are dumb. The most wanted man in the world is killed. The President of the country who wants him dead, must keep quiet about it. Morons.

mnbain - 2012-08-16 11:11

Governments should not keep secrets from their people in the first place.

DSBennie - 2012-08-16 12:52

@wesleywt- they are not talking about the announcement of his death they are talking about leaks of classified information pertaining to the classified parts of the events that were released by someone in the White House a few months ago

jimstaro - 2012-08-16 15:11

These present 'swiftboaters' would do better at their 'educating', saying they are and this attack is not political, if they took that conservative deep pocket money and invest in public service ads, and more, in helping themselves but especially their brother and sister veterans and demand the country finally sacrifice, which them deep pockets made wealth off the wars directly or indirectly and with huge tax cuts right from the beginning, as the tiny band of Vietnam brothers should also have done as both present theaters raged and instead of the conservative mentality of fun with the 'purple heart bandages'. A decade plus now of not added to the previous decades of underfunding the VA while ignoring the many issues of the veterans especially sent into our majority cheered on wars. These present wars, after abandoning the main missions for even sending soldiers into that region with the majority support as the first drum beat was sounded pointed at Iraq, have not been paid for. But especially the results of both and again added to the previous decades of veterans, all costs rubber stamped, off the books till the present executive administration and borrowed, after the surplus was gone and deficits started rising Before 9/11 and the long years, one still very active theater, have since been added to that growing deficit, each day.
USN All Shore '67-'71 GMG3 In Country Vietnam '70-'71

gerhard.kress.3 - 2012-08-16 15:23

You must be smoking very strong stuff. You do not make sense at all.

tabib.asnan.3 - 2012-08-16 23:26

watch 'confronting the evidence' on youtube and realise how full of it they are.